How This Flyin' Hawaiian is Learning, Living & Loving the Rural Life

Month: July 2017

Let’s be honest… the past couple of years I have totally sucked at cooking dinner every night or meal prepping my lunches for work. I’ve fallen off the meal prep train and gone down hill with planning what’s for dinner each night. I mean, my entire day at work revolves around planning and executing, why would I want to do that every single night after a long day of work? Jk, I’m a planner by nature, I just have been lazy at home to say the least. But, the bad habits of eating out or not eating at all have finally gotten to me. This weekend I said, ‘Enough is enough!’ With things always being so busy plus add a tired girl after work on top of that, I knew that if I didn’t take a few hours on the weekend to plan then I’d continue to fail.

So, here’s what I did. First I decided I wanted to prep just my lunches. Then something inside of me said, ‘Psshhh. Why not just prep the entire day for a week!’ Yes, breakfast, lunch AND dinner. So off I went turning to Pinterest of course for meal prep ideas. Before you know it, I was headed to the grocery store and then back home to start cooking and filling my little Tupperware containers.

Here’s what I settled on:

Breakfast- I saw this blog about a lady who wanted to meal prep a hearty breakfast that reminded her of her time growing up on their ranch. It consisted of scrambled eggs and roasted red potatoes with peppers. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure about the scrambled eggs, but I figured since it worked for her I’d give it a try. Plus we already had a bag of baby red potatoes so it was a win! I had my first taste of my meal prepped breakfast this morning and it tasted just fine! And I’m still full from it! Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a try! I added a couple sausage links to mine.

Lunch- I made a knock off Starbucks protein box. It has: cucumber slices, a hard boiled egg, a couple pieces of cheese, some grapes and celery sticks with a little peanut butter and raisins. Super easy!

Dinner- This is where we always fail. Jace hates cooking and if I fail to plan ahead on dinner then it’s really easy to cave (and unhealthy) and get takeout. Knowing that Jace likely wouldn’t want to eat chicken every night, I compromised and made up a huge meatloaf. Half the nights we’ll have meatloaf, rice and steamed broccoli. For the other nights, I grilled up some awesome tasting chicken breast to go over a bed of greens for salad. We had this last night and it was so good! Here’s the simple chicken recipe if you want to try it!

So, for this week, I am feeing like super woman. Three hours of being in the kitchen over the weekend will make my life so much easier this week and will keep us on track and eating at home!

Today was a productive day… at home! I relished in every moment of it! See the blog tomorrow for the low down on what I finally got back into today! I’m pretty proud of myself!

Maybe you’re thinking… ‘Productive day at home?? What about the farm??’ Even though the cows and farm life take a ton of time, I am not the one that is there Every. Single. Day. But, Jace is! Like many of you, I work a normal day job, keep up around our house and also like to have somewhat of a social life (even if it’s just a small sliver sized social life!) which is why I am not at the farm everyday. However, any chance I get, I’m there and I love helping Jace (unless it’s scooping out poop all day from the barns, like in the winter, yuuucckk!).

While it was a productive day at home, that didn’t stop us from checkin’ cows over at the farm. Although they’re out to pasture and we don’t need to feed them in the barn, we still need to check on them. You know, count ’em, make sure no one escaped and keep an eye on them for anything that could potentially pop up.

Here is a short video I threw together of our time with the boys and girls tonight!

Have you ever had to do a job with someone where it gets tense? Everyone’s walking around on edge, partially dreading the task at hand and you just know there might be a “bleepty, bleep, bleep” every other sentence while trying to get the job done? Now that I’ve painted that picture, can you guess the two times that seem to fit this description at the farm? You guessed it! Puttin’ up hay and workin’ cows! I’m not sure why these two jobs always seem to be so stressful when starting out, but for some reason they are. Probably because if anything goes wrong it could be a very big deal. This weekend we worked cattle and I got to be the assistant. I filled syringes, loaded the ear tagger and helped sort. We only had a couple of minor incidents– including the one where a couple of the ornery girls scratched their backs on a gate and completely pulled it up off the hinge and knocked it over. What the ??? Seriously, girls, get it together!

Working cattle meant pushing all of them through the chute– mother cows, heifers and the calves. One by one they each got a shot of Vira Shield and Clostridium. Both are common vaccines to aid in prevention of diseases and illnesses in healthy cows. My job was to prepare an alcohol drenched cotton ball and the syringes each time for Jace, who would then inject them subcutaneously in their neck. That just means they were injected under the skin. Did you like my doctor lingo there? Just call me “Dr. Anderson”– haha!

Fly tag going in

Once finished I quickly handed over the ear tagger to my father in law who inserted a Dominator fly tag into each ear. This is an insecticide tag that is used to help control flies. As the animal moves it’s head backward to scratch, it spreads the insecticide onto it’s back. Now, this is much later than usual to get a fly control program going, but the main thing is we got it done before the flies got too bad.

It’s so important to have a fly control program in place to help with limiting the spread of pink eye. While in the chute being tagged, we checked their eyes. We looked to make sure they weren’t droopy, cloudy or irritated– all signs of pink eye. This year we are in good shape! Flies can travel very far distances and can spread pink eye from herd to herd and multiple animals in a short amount of time resulting in swelling around their eyes to the point they cannot see. If left untreated there are other more severe effects too. The goal is to get a fly program in place just before the warm season starts. Of course with warmer temperatures comes more flies.

The last thing we did was to spread a fly powder over the back of the animal and it’s face. We rubbed the powder down with a brush to help it get further down into the hair as added protection. In addition to the fly tags and powder, we also have fly bags hanging out in the pasture that the cows can rub up against which releases powder onto them. As you can see there are a few things we do to help combat against flies. For the most part, it seems to work until cooler weather comes and they are all much more comfortable again.

How cute is this little gal?

Fly powder going on

Fly powder going on

Fly tag going in

After a couple pairs were moved through the chute (a pair is a mama and her calf), we sorted out a few more. One by one they went through until we were all finished, leaping out of the chute as happy as ever to be done. It was so nice to have a few of us working them. Things moved quickly and efficiently– aside from the sorting part. In case you’re wondering, that’s probably the hardest part along with getting them into the chute which is really what makes things tense. It’s so important to try to remain calm, though. Animals can pick up on that stuff and it only makes it harder to work them. When you’re working with an animal this large you definitely want to make sure they’re calm that’s for sure!

Going back to the pasture

You could tell they were all ready to get back to the pasture we brought them off of to be worked. They balled like little babies begging to go back and eat. We moved them up and over the driveway back to the pasture and they were all happy cows again! The next time we’ll move them through the chute is in the fall when the calves have to be worked again. Until then… the ladies and gents are settled back into their favorite pasture for the time being and Jace is very happy we were able to safely and quickly move them all through.

*Side note- I don’t recommend trying to take pictures while working cows especially if you have a job in the process… Haha…

Holy smokes you guys! It has been nearly two weeks since I’ve sat down and focused on writing a new post. I’m not joking when I say it has literally been driving me CRAY-CRAY! You see, when I started Diary of A Wannabe Farm Girl I had all these plans. Plans of what I thought I wanted to write about and plans of how often I thought I should post (which was twice a week!). Well, guess what? Some of those plans have gone out the door. Sometimes LIFE happens and gets in the way of your plans. And that’s just what’s been going on over here on the home front. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so happy to finally have a summer back where I can be out and about doing all the summer things we like to do– going to the lake, catching a few summer concerts, county fairs, helping at the livestock auctions and just spending time outside with friends. BUT, I’m so thankful I have a morning off to just stay home, clean the house and put laundry away. I’ll spare you the description of how high my “laundry put away pile” was on the guest bed as I’m sure you can all relate somewhat, right?!?! In the midst of all the crazy busy-ness these past two weeks, Jace and I finally made it into that new restaurant that I fell completely in love with because of their logo, Bo & Vine. If you missed out on the Bovine post, check it out here. As I sit here and share with you my official review of Bo & Vine I’m also going to enjoy this super sweet cup of 100% Hawaiian Kona Coffee from my new favorite spot at home in Kona, Kona Coffee & Tea Company. Check them out! Their coffee is AMAZING and if you ever get over to Kona, be sure to stop in because their shop is beautiful! Now, onto Bo & Vine… Here goes….

My Betsy Jo Mug– How cute is it?!?!

Dark Roast 100% Kona Coffee– YUM!!

I went into Bo & Vine with really high expectations. I’ve loved following their posts on IG. The pictures make me want to jump into my computer screen, rip the food out and gobble it down. Ok, not really, but seriously, that’s how good they look! I was surprised when we walked in to find that it was not a sit down and order type of restaurant. They have nice signage right when you enter directing you to order on one end or pick up take out orders on the other. We proceeded to the menus to see what we wanted to order. Instantly I could tell it was not the type of place Jace would appreciate. His wrinkled nose said it loud and clear- haha!

The first thing I noticed was how busy it was! There were literally only a couple of stools at one of their window bars open. Even their outside tables were taken. It was clearly a hopping place. We looked over the menu and I was impressed. Lots of options! I was even more impressed and excited to try a few of their sauces. Jace placed our order for us while I saved us a couple of seats. We both decided to go with the traditional Bo & Vine– the basic burger which included their Bo & Vine sauce (their take on the traditional Thousand Island). We weren’t feeling like being too risky so we stuck with the “you can’t go wrong with this” burger.

Food menu & sauce menu

It was busy!

Aside from the food, they had a nice assortment of local craft beers and wines. We ordered a couple of Mamba’s from one of our local favorites, Gilgamesh. We were surprised to see that it wasn’t on tap and instead poured out of a can. It didn’t come out as cold, but it still worked.

We waited only about 10 minutes for our food and it quickly came out for us to pick up at the counter. The sauces we opted to try were the Bo & Vine, Steak, Sweet Buffalo and Mustard. They were all tasty, the sweet buffalo being a wee bit spicy. But overall, good tasting!

We didn’t waste any time getting into our burgers. They were huge! I was definitely impressed with their size. Now, when it comes to burgers for me, I absolutely hate when the bread falls apart. It gets messy and everything just goes down hill from there. It literally makes me not want to keep eating and messing with it. Well, of course, with my luck, the bread fell apart. It didn’t for Jace though, so I’m guessing mine was just a fluke– or maybe it was just me?!?! Will it stop me from going back? Probably not. The burgers actually were not anything over the top impressive, which was shocking to me. However, they were still good. Maybe it was because we ordered the “Plain Jane” burger? Not sure…

Bo & Vine Burger

Better than the burger was the fries. Oh. My. God. YOU GUYS!! The fries were heavenly! You could choose from hand cut fries or tater tots. Obviously we went with the fries. I’m a crispy french fry kind of girl with just the right amount of salt– not too much and not too little. And, I’m happy to report that Bo & Vine’s fries fulfilled my taste buds for sure. When my burger went south on me I went straight to the fries dipping them in all the sauces and what not.

We were so hungry we scarfed our food down as if we hadn’t eaten in days and then took a minute or two to take in the actual restaurant. A super cute mural incorporating different mountains and landmarks for Oregon and Salem line one entire wall. Subway tile covers the back of their ordering area and all the wood tables and mix of wood/industrial decor was super fitting. It’s definitely a cute, hip place. And, a space that is taking in the new rustic/chic/industrial decor theme that is highly popular right now.

For me, it wasn’t a terrible experience by any means, but it also didn’t live up to the expectations I had walking in. It was still delightful and good and we would definitely try it out again if we are in the downtown area and in the mood for a burger and….. of course, those FRIES! Haha!

I’m interested to see what you guys think! Check it out and leave a comment here and share what you thought!

We’re off to the Linn Co. Junior Livestock Auction today, one that Jace has enjoyed helping at as a ring man for the past several years. Hope ya’ll are doing something fun today too!

As the weekend comes to a close I am reminded again (for the millionth time) how hard farming or having livestock is, but also how rewarding it can be. This weekend we spent the entire weekend putting in hay. We’re not finished yet, but should be tomorrow. Every year about this time, we put up around 1,400 bales to feed the herd through the winter. One by one, every bale is plucked from the field, stacked on the truck, taken up the road to the farm, unloaded at the bottom of the barn and put on a conveyor. Each bale makes the trip up to the loft to be handled one more time and stacked to perfection inside (stacked by Mr. Captain Farm Boss of course!)

Every bale weighs about 50 to 60 lbs. Add to that, the heat and the dustyness of the fresh cut grass and you can see why it’s not one of my favorite things to do. But when it’s all done and in the barn, it really is a great feeling.

Co-Pilot, Tucker

However, when it comes to hay I really can’t complain…. This time last year I was recovering from back surgery. Long story short, I got out of doing hay last year– obviously for good reason! This year, not a chance of that. There was no way I could milk that excuse again, haha! But… My help with hay is not what I described above and the real reason why I cannot complain. While Jace and our hay crew are out slinging bales and sweating like the hard working men that they are, I have the luxury of being the driver. I get to sit in the pick up with the windows up, air on full blast keeping me cool and my co-pilot by my side to keep me company– isn’t he so cute?!

My job is to drive the truck from stack to stack so the guys don’t have to do it and keep things moving right along. It is definitely the more glamorous part of the job and someone’s got to do it, so why not me? JK. As far as I can remember, I’ve always been the driver and left the heavy lifting and stacking to the pros. Except this one time…

It was about five years ago… We had gotten a bunch of bales up to the barn that still needed to be put up inside. One of our friends, TJ, was on his way to help Jace put them in. While he waited for him, Mother Nature started gettin’ all sassy, acting like she wasn’t on our side. The clouds rolled in and looked like they were going to start dumping on the hay. Like anyone else who might stress out about this, Jace was clearly getting anxious. If it had rained, our hay would have gotten ruined and all he could see were dollar signs and hard work before his eyes going up in flames.

I had just gotten off the treadmill at the house and ran down to the barn to see what was up. I noticed Jace’s worry coming through (it was kind of easy by the choice words coming out of his mouth! Haha!) and decided I would help him until TJ arrived. Mind you, I just got done with a run so I was wearing shorts and running shoes– not quite the right attire for the task. ‘Whatever,’ I said. Anything to help my guy out, right?!?! I found a pair of his Muck Boots at the barn and put them on to help cover my legs a little more. They were HUGE. And it was hot. Ankle socks in huge, hot Muck Boots…. Gross. And, not the greatest feeling. Ugh. I know, I’m from Hawaii I should be used to the heat, right? Wrong! I’ve become quite the heat sissy since living in Oregon- hah! Anyhow, one by one I start slinging these bales onto the conveyor up to Jace. You guys– it was a shit show, seriously! First off, if you don’t get the bale on the conveyor right it will slide back down, make the chain rattle and cause Jace to yell down to you. “Flip it over!!” Imagine that happening for just about every other bale. Secondly, my outfit was a joke and totally inappropriate for the job.

I was thinking I’d help Jace for about a half hour or so and sneak out before our friend arrived. Talk about things not going as I had hoped… About 30 bales in and here comes TJ strolling in before I could sneak away and not expose how much of a dweeb I was to anyone else besides Jace. Of course, he was laughing at the scene he pulled up to (and probably thinking WTF Flyin’ Hawaiian?!?!).

You guys– my legs were alllll cut up! The next day they were seriously on fire from all the tiny little grass cuts because my crazy self decided it would be fine to put hay up in shorts. Jace and TJ still bring that story up and I’m sure they will never forget it. It was a total ‘Wannabe Farm Girl’ situation. Thinking back, it was funny (and painful). I’ve never worn shorts to put hay up ever again and definitely learned my lesson. There are other ways for me to be helpful on the farm or during hay season. It’s one of those things that is just easier if I don’t try to get too involved with, and I’m ok with that. I’m definitely ok with just being the driver.

For next year, you know where to find me during hay season. Come ride shotgun with me!

It’s a family affair!

Catching some sun while switching trucks!

Load after load…

Tieing the load down

Driver’s view!

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